Here we go again.  Planning for NNPEN’s April 2024 conference is already underway and we are asking ourselves this question: will NP leaders feel that the healthcare delivery system, and NPs as a profession, are better off now than 12 months ago?  Are we any closer to quantifying NP value? And if not, does it still matter?

From the outside, it is hard to “hear” movement from “silence to voice,” as authors Buresh and Gordon labeled nursing’s challenge in 2013 -- ten years ago.  A few years later, here is what we thought NP disruptors would sound and look like, based on eight-year-old keynote slides from NNPEN’s Inaugural Boston conference in 2017:

 Attributes of an NP Market Disruptor

•         Understands what is driving change in health care, especially in primary care access.
•         Sees NP FPA struggle in broader regulatory & economic markets context: classic competition battle. History is on our side!
•         Identifies business models available to NPs and the skillsets needed to survive.
•         Develops confidence in the business case for NPs as independent practitioners.

Can we declare “mission accomplished!”?  Yes, and no…

I would argue that inside the NP community there is an unmistakable restlessness for change being channeled by NP entrepreneurs in increasing numbers. NP entrepreneurs take the road less travelled, color outside the lines, and make good trouble, in a nutshell are market disruptors.  We will open our 2024 conference with case studies of NP entrepreneurs who are showing us disruption first-hand:

1] “call me doctor” litigation brought by 3 NPs against the CA Board of Nursing

2] a fact check challenge to the AMA’s disturbing put-down of NPs as primary care equals

3] an academic proposal to move nursing out from under the bed rate to financial accountability as a free-standing revenue center, be it in a corporate setting or health system or nurse-led clinics.

This year, NNPEN aims to open NP eyes to the possibility that NP practice transition to a growth mode and risk readiness is already underway.  Indeed, we can find evidence of NPs as disruptors in two of our 2017 disruptor attributes list:  [Understands what is driving change in health care? Check! Identifies business models available to NPs and the skillsets needed to survive? Check!

Do NPs see the FPA struggle as a classical competition struggle that history tells us NPs will win?  Maybe. 

Do NPs feel confident in the business case for NPs as independent practitioners? No.

Have we translated the impact of the nursing model, our patient-centered north star, into dollars as well as clinical value? 

Not yet.  There is clearly work to do.

Market disruption is not the only growth tale to unfold on April 13 at our conference. Two of our favorite NP-literate attorneys Justin Marti and Dena Castricone will share their views on how growth uncertainties can be managed even as we encourage NP entrepreneurs to color outside the lines.  To top off the day, in-person attendees will sign up for consecutive breakout sessions that explore the everyday challenges to, and collaboration proposals for, making NP entrepreneurship sustainable by joining forces—not practice absorption but practice networking to make 2+2=5.  Ponder one very encouraging data point from our 2023 survey of 1200 independent NPs in Connecticut: 65% of the NP respondents indicated interest in “collaborating with other nurse-led practices to access the benefits of value-based reimbursement.

Change comes when entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs become disruptors who color outside the lines TOGETHER.  Bring an NP entrepreneur buddy with you so that your aspiration to “be the boss of me” does not die at the end of the day.  We will supply the crayons! 

Be there: April 13, 2024, at the Hartford CT airport’s convenient and safe Sheraton Hotel venue. 

SB